


Cause and Effect

by RurouniHime



Series: Day series [11]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst and Feels, BAMF Arthur, Character Death, Danger, Dreamsharing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hotel Sex, M/M, Married Life, Plans For The Future, Protective Arthur, Top Eames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:47:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2300306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Donald smirks. He turns away and starts unbuttoning his cufflinks. "Does he know you’re checking up on him?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"I’m checking up on you."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cause and Effect

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you muchly to [dysonrules](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dysonrules/pseuds/dysonrules) for beta-ing!! *squinches*

_Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so. ~David Grayson_

 

The door opens, spilling a yellow arc into the hotel room. Adam Donald enters and kicks off his shoes. Arthur feels it the instant the man notes his presence: Donald comes to a quick stop just where the bathroom angles off, and stares into the darkness. His hands are empty still, but twitching near to pockets.

The chair is, as Eames would say, rather lush. Arthur crosses one leg over the other, parting shape from shadow for his observer.

“Hi.”

His counterpart remains silent, then reaches slowly for the wall toward the light switch. Arthur shuts an eye briefly, easing the adjustment, and when the light flares, Adam Donald is the one left blinking.

“Hi,” Donald grunts out, barely a word. Arthur gives him a pleasant smile.

“Glad I caught you.”

Donald’s eyes tick over Arthur’s face, down to his hands where they rest on each arm of the chair, and back again, second sweep. Arthur gives him his moment, and only speaks when those eyes drift toward the bathroom doorway.

“I took that gun out.” He points with just a finger to the weapon, now empty of ammo on the TV stand.

Donald lifts his chin, mouth a cool line. “So you did.”

“I’d like to keep this civil,” Arthur continues. “One contemporary to another.”

“And what is it you want?”

“I’m interested in the job you’re running.” They’ve never met, but Donald knows who he is, Arthur can read it in the strange, hungry light buried in dark eyes. He knows Donald is thinking about inception and the few individuals who’d actually pulled it off. The idea of him looking at Eames with that same expression every day curdles in Arthur’s gut. 

But there’s something else lurking beneath the hunger, and Arthur’s going to play that fear for all it’s worth.

“I already have a point,” Donald says.

“And she’s a good one.” Arthur watches as Donald absorbs the information of just how much he knows already, how much he hasn’t revealed yet. 

“If you’re here to compromise me with the client—”

“Not my intention. I’m well aware of who they are.”

He hasn’t spoken to Eames at all this week because of it. Radio silence while Eames tails his forges, and again once they approach zero hour. The people on the other end of Eames’ paystub are frightening enough to warrant such extremes. Arthur doesn’t like it. He’s done it before himself, but he doesn’t like it.

“Then why _are_ you here?” Donald’s tone goes exasperated. He’s ready to move on, no immediate threat apparent, let’s wrap it up. But Arthur’s in no hurry. They’ll go by his timeline until he has incentive to switch.

“You’ve selected some very specific people for your team, Donald. Sixty percent exceptional, forty percent… less so.”

Donald’s eyebrows lift and Arthur smiles again. “I’m particularly interested in your choice of forger.” He moves the fingers of his left hand only this time and the extractor’s eyes drop to them.

“You’re not being very subtle about him,” Donald says. He sounds like he’s picking his way around potential trigger words. Though, god help Donald if he actually uses the word ‘leverage.’ 

Arthur looks him in the eye. “Eames can take care of himself. I’m here to make sure you don’t put him into a position where he has to.”

“So you just show up.”

“Thought I’d make my point before you all go underground.”

This time Donald smirks. He turns away and starts unbuttoning his cufflinks. “Does he know you’re checking up on him?”

“I’m checking up on you.”

Donald swivels to stare at Arthur again. Belatedly, derision reappears around his mouth. “I think Eames is capable of handling things. He’s a big boy.”

Oh, Donald has no idea. Arthur takes his Sig from his coat and enjoys it when Donald stills with his sleeves halfway rolled.

“Keep this clean, Donald,” Arthur murmurs. “No games. No showboating. Do the job and call it a win.”

Donald’s jaw ticks. His eyes drop to the gun again. “You’re awfully sure of yourse—”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur cuts him off. “You’re under the impression I didn’t prepare for this?”

He gestures around the room with one hand, and sees it when Donald gets it. The stillness of before is nothing compared to this. He’ll be remembering just what Arthur does for a living, pitting it against his impressions of him as a person. Filleting through the meat of it now, wondering if Arthur has a bead on his accounts (he does), the one in the Caymans (especially that one), the name of his mark (absolutely) and the best way to flip this entire job on Donald alone (it’s a beauty, Arthur’s proud of it).

Maybe, just maybe, the niece in her third year at USC.

Arthur strokes a finger up the side of his gun. He’d stopped at the niece, but the night is young.

He rises and moves across the room until he’s uncomfortably close. Uncomfortable for Donald, at least. Because there’s also the little matter of what Arthur did the last time someone threatened Eames, two years ago. And everyone in the business is aware of that.

“I know you, Donald,” he murmurs. “You’re cavalier with the lives of your team members. You’re far too obsessed with one-upmanship. You take risks.” He glances down at his gun. “I know you’ve hired Gabriel Nash for this venture, and the idea of him anywhere near my husband makes me fairly discomfited.”

Donald’s eyes widen at the plain pronouncement of their relationship, but Arthur isn’t here to beat around bushes. He wants the fear of god in this man and he wants it deep.

“Normally I would recommend a much more trustworthy architect for your job. But I would never put her in danger. If you were the only one who had to live with your poor choices, Donald, I wouldn’t be here at all.” He raises both hands out to his sides, a _what can you do?_ “As it stands…”

Donald’s eyes track back to Arthur’s wedding ring. “Never noticed him wearing one.” He sounds a little hoarse.

“You wouldn’t.” Arthur steps away, clicks the Sig’s safety back on and sees Donald’s eyes bulge all over again. “It isn’t meant for you.”

He moves back to the TV, picks up the ammo from the bathroom gun and tosses it in Donald’s direction. The extractor catches it, nearly fumbles. Arthur gives him a faint smile. “Have a good one, Donald. And good luck.”

When he leaves, Donald hasn’t moved.

**

Up three floors and clear on the other side of the hotel, Arthur comes to a stop outside room 504. He lifts the _Do Not Disturb_ placard out of the way, picks the old fashioned lock, then stands in the middle of Eames’ room, watching dust motes tremble by the windows. It’s a nice room, though impersonal. Eames’ bags are in the corner and his good blazer is pressed and hanging in the closet. There’s no other sense of him here, no smell or echo. Arthur has a return flight to catch, the only Transatlantic hop for twenty-four hours.

He goes to the bed, presses his face to one of the pillows, and _there_ he is, the same scent as the cut-off sweats he works out in and the tanks he sleeps in these days, the tantalizing curl of the shampoo he uses. Images of their bathroom, cloying with steam and heavy air, slide home. Arthur inhales, curls his fingers around the pillow, and drifts.

Eventually he gets up. Straightens the bedding, puts the door lock to rights, and catches a cab to the airport.

**

He’s yawning over long flights and stirring up a skillet of chicken pesto the following evening when his phone buzzes on the counter.

“Enjoy your visit, darling?”

It’s hard to tell from Eames’ tone where he stands on the matter. Arthur places the spatula on the stovetop and draws a breath.

“Productive enough, I think. Wish I could have stayed longer.”

Eames’ laugh is low; Arthur leans back against the counter with a silent sigh. “As do I. Did you give him a show, then?”

“Something like that.”

“He’s squirrelly in a whole new way now.” Eames lets out a little sigh of his own. “Smelled your aftershave. On my pillow. You can imagine my disappointment when that’s all it was.”

Arthur doubts that’s the whole of it. Eames probably sensed he’d been there the instant he walked back into his hotel room, maybe even before that, in the hallway. Arthur had little real incentive for keeping his visit sterile, and Eames sometimes understands Arthur’s methods better than he does.

One of these days, it’ll get him into trouble. Somehow.

“Yeah, well.” And he’s got nothing else. He stirs the pesto, hunched, feeling like he has to protect the phone with his body. 

After a moment’s silence, Eames speaks. “Saw something I knew you’d like. I’m afraid I made an impulse buy.”

“What is it?”

“Well, they’re red, white, and square, darling. And there’s a thickly woven tie, right up the front.” The phone buzzes and a picture erupts across the screen. “A _bit_ snug.”

Arthur can’t help it; he laughs, hard enough to sag against the counter as he’s assaulted by memory. “Oh. Oh, god. Eames, _where?”_

“On a very pleasing model outside a seedy boutique downtown.”

Arthur touches the screen with his fingertips, caressing the lines and wishing for less cold, hard plastic. “I hope for your sake you didn’t take that pair right off his hips.”

“You remember that cruise we took,” Eames says, “to tail a client, only there wasn’t one on that ship, and you had me staking out the pool for three days before you came clean?”

Oh, yes, he recalls that in some detail. “I didn’t come clean,” he states. “And it was a nice view, if I remember.”

“I remember better what happened after I figured you out.” Eames’ voice has dropped, fluidic between words. Arthur shifts against the counter, arcing his hips forward and then thinking better of the pull of fabric.

“Took you longer than it should have,” he responds, the words unexpectedly throaty. “In my professional opinion.”

“Yes,” Eames says slowly. Deliberately. “It did.”

“Thinking we should do that again,” Arthur says, soft.

“Think it was a waste, paying for a cruise we never really got out of the room to enjoy.”

“Hey. That cruise was worth every penny.”

“Arthur, you know I can’t even quantify what that cruise was worth to me.”

Arthur cups the phone closer, desperate to hear the sound of Eames’ breathing. And he _can_ hear it, quiet and slow, falling to match his own.

“Watch Nash,” he says after a long moment. It doesn’t need to be said; Eames knows the particulars about Cobol and Saito, the need for Ariadne’s eventual acquaintance with all of them. But something’s ticking over in Arthur, a scale shifting as the weight drops out with the words.

Eames hums. “I will. Love you, Arthur.”

“I love you, too,” he says, too heavy.

The call ends.

**

Within three days, Sonya and Peters show up, and Sonya commandeers the office space still under renovation on Harking Blvd, about twenty minutes outside the city. The overhaul will be picked up again in the fall when the company’s budget gets its quarterly influx. For now, it’s a drafty space full of new wall frames and old electrical connections. Wide window panes fogged over with swipes of primer, good for home base until they get on the plane to DC for the actual extraction. 

Arthur gets an old television out of storage, resumes electricity for the building by routing it through a subsidiary account, quietly tags onto a neighboring floor’s WiFi feed, and compiles campaign statistics on their mark. He reserves a hotel room close to the site, rents a car—he never uses theirs on a job—and ends up finally calling a plumber to figure out the weird issues in their en suite at home.

“Clay piping,” he tells Eames the day before Eames goes under for the duration. He’s sitting beneath lamplight in the hotel room, double checking itinerary dates for one of the mark’s aides. “Some jackass knocked holes in it to clear out blockages, then patched it over with metal sheets.”

He hears Eames click his tongue against his teeth. “Bet we’ve a cistern out back.”

Arthur rubs his forehead. “I do not want to know.”

“Leave it.” Eames’ voice is full of nerves. He gets that way before the big ones, something Arthur didn’t know until he was sleeping with him. “I’ll dig up the yard when I get home.”

“Good, I’ll watch.”

“I’ll just bet you will.”

Arthur searches for lighthearted, wants nothing more than to pull Eames back up and dispel this anxiety. “Sonya’s got a surprise for you.”

“Oh, yes?”

Arthur considers, then shakes his head. “Hers to tell. They’ll still be here when you’re back.” Otherwise they don’t talk about either job.

He can feel the silence of his phone the next day, in his pocket, on the hotel dresser, on the seat next to him as he drives.

**

Six days later, on Thursday, his phone buzzes on his way in to work. He’s still pulling his coat on, striding down the block to where he left the rental. It’s a message from an unfamiliar number, and Arthur punches in his code. But it’s just the short, airy rush of a misdialed line, like connecting to an empty room. A click, a shiver of static, then nothing.

Another call comes in, this one from Sonya. Arthur switches over, then signs the next hour of his life away to locating fishing line for her rapidly expanding set of models.

It’s unlikely the message is from Eames. They’re late in their job, almost to the finish. Only a day or two left.

**

The news is on low in the corner, and Arthur loops yards of thin stretchy fishing line from elbow to thumb.

“Ah—shit.” Sonya snatches at her line as the bundle snaps off her elbow, twisting around itself on its way to the floor. She huffs out a breath and drops to her knees to salvage the tangle.

Arthur smirks at her. “There. Exciting.”

“Shut up.” Sonya’s surprise is that she’s pregnant, just far enough along to show, and therefore unable to drop into the dream with them. But she’s also smiling, the tip of her tongue peeking between her teeth. On the television, CNN’s coverage of the economic crisis in Europe starts over and Arthur relaxes, set to tune it out for a while. They’re waiting for the mention of the switch in their mark’s campaign strategy, the reveal to the public, and the announcement of his subsequent travels. They’ve been watching for two days, one of them always attentive to the TV. It’s coming, and as soon as it does, the final week’s countdown will begin.

“I want _springiness,”_ Sonya says, apropos of nothing. The fishing line is between her teeth as she picks at a miniscule knot.

Arthur raises both hands, line and all. “I said nothing.”

She points at him with the end of the fishing line. “Springiness. Arthur.”

She means the whole design. Arthur imagines the smooth give and sway of fanciful buildings, the visual metaphor for the city infrastructure their mark wants to build once he’s in office. Strong but supple. Flexible.

It’ll be an absolute riot, flinging himself around this dream. He’s tempted to start a fight with the mark’s projections, just to see what happens.

It’s another hour to string the line at the correct angles, and to hang each building in just the right spot. By the time Arthur’s spool has run out, the whole thing looks like a spider web collage, lightweight models twisting gently around each other.

“The elasticity’s good,” Sonya murmurs, pinging a building with her fingertip, and bends down to get an angle of sight through the foam board mobile. Her hair is in a ponytail, striping in shades of black and brown along the sides of her head. “Could punch through here. Walkways, stretching and contracting again when we need them to.”

“From his office to the lobbyists’?”

She shrugs. “Would cut down on travel time. He’s been going back and forth between them for weeks anyway.”

Arthur nods slowly. “He doesn’t even go home to sleep anymore. If we can cut out the house entirely—”

“But it’s his home. Wouldn’t that ping his radar?”

“No, it’ll actually simplify the whole thing. You should see his place. Calendar’s still on January and there’s dust on all the faucets.”

“You broke into his house when you were in Georgetown.”

Arthur flashes his teeth. “I’m thorough.”

Sonya laughs. “That’s one word for it.” She sets about dismantling the house floor plan to their right. 

It twitches in Arthur’s mind long before he registers the words he’s hearing, a subtle shift. He lowers the section of the model he’s holding and cranes around toward the television.

“—shocking discovery by officials in Moldova, leading to an intense investigation into mafia organizations long thought defunct. The bodies of five individuals, their identities as yet undetermined, were found early last night in an abandoned factory in downtown Chişinău’s Buiucani sector. The deaths appear to be executions, though they are not overtly linked to the style of any crime syndicate known to have operated within the city.”

Arthur drops the model and crosses the room on quick strides.

“Arthur, they’re fragile, be careful.”

“—one woman and four men. Once again, the victims’ identities have not been determined at this time, though officials—”

“God—” It hisses from Arthur’s throat without thought. Just the same marrow-deep instinct he has relied upon for years.

“Arthur.” He feels Sonya’s hand on his arm, and then the clench as she forgets to comfort, as her focus sucks in on the TV instead. 

Execution style, two taps to each head and one to each chest. Indications of chemical incapacitation. The numbers are painful: five individuals, one woman, four men. There’s no mention of a PASIV, but any assassin worth his or her salt would have disconnected it, taken it away. The newscaster’s words echo in an emotionless cadence. _The bodies are almost ritualistic in positioning._ In chairs. In a circle. Arthur’s heart heaves blood into his ears in great rhythmic thumps.

He fumbles out his phone and punches in Eames’ number.

“The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer—”

“Shit.” He hangs up, dials again.

Eames’ back-up just rings and rings and rings.

Arthur snatches up his briefcase and digs out the cell he’s never had to use, the small, simple one that still looks brand new after five years, and stabs the number for their safe house in Debrecen. “Come on, pick up the damn phone, answer the—”

Nothing. Nothing again from the rundown flat in Swindon. He tries every number he remembers from Eames’ coffers, even burners Eames hasn’t actively used yet. On the edge of his awareness, Sonya moves about the room, shutting things down and packing up. She gets on her phone once, to Peters. “Jamie, get here now.”

At last Arthur runs out of numbers. He grabs his keys and turns for the door, but Sonya follows him, snatching the key ring from his hand. 

_“Sonya—”_ he explodes.

“I’m coming, Arthur,” she snaps. She shoves a gun into her boot and pushes him toward the door. “And you’re not driving.”

**

They don’t have a landline, because there had never been a point to it, and Arthur erupts out of the car before Sonya properly parks it, sprinting up the front steps. It’s a cold day, end of the work week; no one’s out. He remembers himself, and the way they lost their first apartment six years ago, at the last minute and gets his gun out, standing flush to the wall beside the front door while he tests the knob, then unlocks it. Pushes it open and spins inside. The hall is cool and dark, just like he left it.

“Arthur,” Sonya hisses, and he waits for her to follow, to cover him down the hall into the kitchen, then on to the bedrooms. In the living room for the second time, he can’t wait anymore.

“Eames?”

There’s no one home. No bags, no sign that anyone has been there for days. They check twice over just in case, the backyard and the garage, but they are empty of human life. Arthur stops in the living room again, his hands shaking around the Sig.

“Jamie’s going back to the office block,” Sonya says, flipping her phone shut. Arthur hadn’t even realized she was on it again. “He’s contacting Mariam in Odesa, see if she knows anything. And there’s Santi in Varna, if—”

“Santi was on the team,” Arthur whispers, and Sonya falls silent.

Arthur scribbles a note in code as clearly as his hands will allow and leaves it in the middle of the dining room table. To anyone but Eames, it will look like an unfinished grocery list. Then he gets his phone out again, waving Sonya toward the door. “Drive.”

**

He calls Rankin in Luxor, who doesn’t answer, then Yusuf at his home in Mombasa, who has only just seen it on the news and knows little more than Arthur. He calls Ariadne, who gets very quiet. He even leaves a message with Cobb, who—who must be picking his kids up from _school,_ fuck—

He calls Saito on the off chance that he’s heard from Eames directly. But Saito knows nothing. He promises to use his considerable resources to find out what he can. Arthur nods dully, says goodbye.

Meanwhile, Sonya drives: to various hotels they’ve chosen for cover if they’ve been compromised, to the airport, to the train station, even to the fucking bar Eames has a soft spot for. There’s nothing. Arthur calls more hotels in other cities. His brain snatches out, stretches for names, places, each one less and less likely to house Eames, and when the thought finally ticks in, he’s too exhausted to be floored by it.

 _Did I do this? By confronting Donald, did I—_ A whole scheme of cause and effect unwinds before him, taking root in a single darkened hotel room.

“Arthur, no,” Sonya says. He must have said it aloud. Her hands tighten on the steering wheel and she mutters obscenities in the wake of a blue sedan that pauses too long when the light turns green. The signal goes yellow again anyway before they can get through it, and Sonya exhales, then turns fully to him. “We’re going to find him.”

But the thing is? Arthur’s afraid they _will._ That the police in Chişinău already have.

They return to the house. This time the stillness there curls its fingers around Arthur’s heart, crushing inward.

**

Sonya refuses to leave him alone and instead takes him back to the office block. Arthur both does and doesn’t want to be at home with all that emptiness. Eames is somehow still there, in scent, in memory, trace elements that Arthur can sense more clearly than ever. He stares blankly out the passenger window as Sonya drives, his mind a toothless shark circling the same dead carcass over and over.

Three hours ago, it was just another day, two weeks out from their anniversary, and Arthur had plans.

On the street outside the office building, Sonya’s phone rings, but it’s just Peters trying to find out where they are. Arthur shoulders the door to the office open, already at the computer in his head, dragging up every talent for database hacking that he possesses. He brushes past Peters, who doesn’t try to halt his progress. As his laptop loads, he hears Sonya outlining the situation, hears Peters adding to the tumbling weight with his own dead ends.

Santi is indeed missing in action. Arthur rubs his mouth, hacks into the outskirts of the Interpol system, and tries not to think too hard.

An hour later, Interpol doesn’t have pictures. Arthur wants to scream, to rage at inefficiency and secrecy. He knows this isn’t his forte, he knows he has contacts specifically for this type of research, but he still can’t get hold of Rankin and he can’t make heads or tails of computer code this complex. If he makes a mistake, they’ll zero in and find him, and he can’t possibly search out Eames when he’s on the run himself. Arthur gives up, tries the Chişinău police network, and gets nothing but what the news had to offer, records probably already censored by international law enforcement. Which means they’re either conducting a deep cover mafia hunt as speculated, or they know they’re looking for connections to illegal dreamsharing.

He pushes back and sits for a minute with his hands over his face, thumbs digging into the pressure points just under his jaw. The pain lashes viciously at his mind.

It’s getting dark when Peters quietly offers food in between phone calls. The television is on again, turned low enough that Arthur is only privy to a soft murmur. Sonya’s jaw is tight as she taps away on her keyboard. Arthur’s not hungry, but even he is aware of the necessity, and agrees to a sandwich of some kind as long as it’ll give him something to do other than wallow. All his feelers are out and none have checked back in. Donald’s client is a silent, hulking presence in the atmosphere, the mark smaller and just as silent, no word on the activities of either. It’s too soon, Arthur knows it’s too soon, that useful data requires time to be compiled, but this dead zone is too immense, too strangling. One minute he can’t move for thinking, the next he can’t keep still.

He eats his sandwich mechanically when it arrives and can’t remember a thing about what was in it. He goes back to his die again, running it over and over between fingers already sore from the repeated motion.

Eventually, he senses the fidgeting of his teammates, the way their eyes keep dropping to him, and turns around.

“You should sleep, Arthur,” Sonya says, half of her face alight from the TV screen. At his desk across the room, Peters leans, cell phone still in hand but long since silent. 

Arthur laughs, a sharp sound that doesn’t make either of them flinch. He rubs his forehead, over and over until the skin feels tender.

“Arthur.”

“No,” he grates out, knowing that she’s right. And that he can’t sleep here because then he won’t sleep at all. Then again, he doubts he’ll sleep anywhere.

“I’ll come with you?”

He lifts his head slowly and finds her looking at him with overt sadness in her eyes. Too tired now to keep it from getting through. The exhaustion rolls over Arthur like an ocean’s wave, and he takes a deep, broken breath. It’s suddenly a lot of work to sit upright.

It doesn’t matter where he goes. The bruising beneath his ribs will be there regardless.

He could go to the hotel, considers it as he’s pulling himself to his feet, reaching automatically for the coat slung over his chair. But he doesn’t want that bed, those impersonal sheets, that everyman deco that apes at life but contains none. He wants Eames so badly that his lungs punch closed and he sways there, aching, steadying himself with one hand on the desktop.

Then it’s gone and he straightens. Packs up his laptop and follows Sonya silently to the door.

**

It’s past eleven, the air especially icy as he gets his front door open and lets them both inside. The reality of ‘home’ engulfs him at once and he fights it off, frustrated with his own susceptibility. He registers sounds belatedly: the refrigerator and the water heater, the shuff of his shoes across carpet. He drops his briefcase on the floor, not caring about his computer, enters the living room and looks in toward the dining room with its light on, and there is Eames.

 _Eames,_ rising quickly from a chair, wearing jeans and a plain tee, his face as white as chalk.

Arthur lunges, shoving another chair aside, and gets his hands on Eames’ face. The sheer heat has him choking, wrapping his husband as tightly in his arms as he can, tighter than should be possible. The smell comes next, every familiar scent tangled up in one smarting heave. He runs his palms over Eames’ shoulders and back, fists his shirt and jerks him in, rasps an ‘oh, God’ into the thin fabric of Eames’ collar.

Eames crushes him close and presses his nose just behind Arthur’s ear. “Sorry, I’m _so_ sorry—” 

Arthur hits him, fists his hand and smacks it against Eames’ upper arm. Then he finds Eames’ mouth and kisses him so hard, so long that his vision blurs from lack of oxygen. Because he _will not_ close his eyes, can’t let Eames out of his sight. “The fuck—didn’t you _call—”_

Eames’ arms tighten even further, pushing out whatever’s left in Arthur’s lungs. “I didn’t know. Pulled up stakes six days ago, almost as soon as we went under. The whole thing was rubbing me wrong. I told Donald and I left. I binned all my phones and took the long route because of the client, I had no idea if they—” He pulls Arthur away, gets a good look into his eyes, then kisses him on the forehead, breathing harshly over his hair. “Couldn’t call you. If they were following—”

He trails off, weaves his hand up through Arthur’s hair. And Arthur can only think to inhale him, get him closer, get inside him all at once somehow. The physical impossibility is maddening.

“That was you,” he grunts. “This morning.”

Eames makes a sound low in his throat; Arthur feels him swallow. “I tried. From O’Hare. And then your voice—your message came on and I thought better of it. Knew I’d see you anyway and just—I came here.”

“I thought you were dead.” Even now it sounds like a bad omen, an incantation.

“I would have called you,” Eames breathes. “None of the neighbors were home, I was about to, to go to one of the hotels and.”

Arthur kisses him again, too hard. It hurts, and he doesn’t care, he wants it to hurt, to remind him that he’s actually standing here. He fumbles into his pocket, rolls his die across the table next to them and watches it over Eames’ shoulder. He must make some sound because Eames’ next breath breaks and he tucks Arthur’s face into his neck, cradling the side of Arthur’s head. “Darling, I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

And then, slightly more level, “Sonya, hello.”

“Eames, I swear to god,” Sonya spits. 

Arthur turns in time to see her shoulders cave as she braces against the back of a chair. She looks pale herself. Arthur remembers what else Sonya’s been present for, the wedding and so many of their jobs after that, and feels like a lousy human being. 

He disentangles himself just enough to pull another chair around, to gesture her into it. “Sit down, just.”

His voice cracks all over the place and Sonya looks at him before taking the proffered seat. Eames’ hand runs soothingly over Arthur’s nape, fingers curling under his collar. Sonya pulls out her phone.

“Have to call Jamie,” she mutters, and then Eames is turning Arthur back and kissing him thoroughly. Mouthing at his cheek when he finishes.

“When. When did you…” Arthur gestures. It feels like all he can do not to find his husband’s mouth and keep affirming that he’s alive. Damn it, they’re in mixed company here, he can’t just—

“Saw your note. I turned on the TV and... Arthur, I swear I didn’t know.”

It occurs to him that the tremors running through Eames’ frame are not only due to Arthur’s return. It hurts all over again, how close Eames came but for one niggling instinct, and Arthur shuts his eyes and concentrates on his heartbeat.

He forces himself—god, but it’s hard—to draw back. “I need to call Yusuf,” he mutters. “And Saito. Cobb.”

Sonya’s voice startles him. “I’ll take care of all that. You just…” She waves a hand at them, still looking a little windblown.

“Sonya, are you okay?”

“Just fine.”

Eames frowns, and Sonya gives a little laugh. “Arthur’s worried because I’m pregnant.”

“Bloody hell,” Eames sighs. “Sonya.”

“Listen,” she says. “Where do we all stand?”

Arthur takes one more second to fill his lungs with Eames. Then he pulls back, looks his husband in the eye. “I want us at the hotel tonight.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Sonya nodding. He turns to her. “Scrap it, all of it. You and Peters need to leave. I’ll figure things out with the client later.”

She looks to Eames. “Wait a minute, you think—”

Eames’ hands tighten at Arthur’s hips. “Yes.”

Arthur finds one of his hands and threads their fingers together. “Look, scatter, just to be safe. I’ll work it out with our client. The people that hired Eames’ team—”

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I heard.”

It doesn’t take long to get them out of the house. Eames never unpacked, and Arthur’s things are all at the hotel. They leave their car where it sits in the driveway and take the rental back to the office block. It’s already dark, Peters long gone at Sonya’s warning, and it looks utterly abandoned once more. Sonya gets into her car with a single raised hand in their direction, and then she leaves, too, and the street is empty.

Arthur drives them to the hotel. Eames has gone ominously silent, his gaze fixed out on the empty roads. There’s a back staircase that opens up right outside Arthur’s room, but he takes a circle or two around the block before he and Eames go in. It’s late enough that no one’s in the parking lot or the halls. Once inside their room, Eames locks the door and Arthur dumps his Sim card down the toilet.

Arthur has leftovers in the fridge, but Eames just sort of stares at them before putting them back. Arthur, at the window, watches him in between surveys of the street. Eames crosses the room, hands linked behind his nape and elbows out, and then turns around and comes back. Turns again. Paces.

There’s a familiar tension Arthur can’t place, something that has nothing to do with running for one’s life. It knots further in his belly the more Eames walks, and before he knows it, he’s fidgeting with his gun, tapping his thumb against the trigger housing.

Eames’ voice is so unexpected it doesn’t make sense at first. “Arthur, please—”

He turns. His eyes are red, his face a rictus, and Arthur stares.

“What?”

Eames’ mouth flattens. His hand darts out, a spasm as if he’s desperate to shed something, and, _oh,_ for doing it again, for getting in with the wrong crowd, for dragging it all back home—

Eames’ head bows; his hand comes up to cover his eyes. He shakes his head and Arthur grabs him by the wrist.

“No,” he manages. Eames resists, turns away, then stares Arthur down. There’s such devastation there, as though Eames is looking at that final line he’s crossed, swallowing down bile he knows he’ll never be rid of. 

“Don’t do that,” Arthur hisses, pulling at Eames even as Eames pulls away, “that’s not what this is.” He should be mad, maybe he even has a right, but he doesn’t feel it. He’s done worse in his time, he’s walked out of the inferno on his tiptoes, convinced that he’s invincible, and he’s seen Eames do the same, watched and fumed and sworn he’ll never play the straight man in this godforsaken joke again, and _this is not it._ This is not that.

“I _love_ you,” he tries, scared of the way Eames is evading him, still pulling away, not even looking at him anymore. This wasn’t on Eames, not this time. This time, Eames did everything right, and it still went wrong. Arthur’s losing everything he just got back, how can he fucking lose something that he’s touching? “Damn it, Eames, look at me.”

Eames does, barely, and Arthur drags in a breath, because it’s a start, it’s something, even if Eames doesn’t believe. He takes Eames’ jaw in a firm hold and kisses the corner of his mouth. The kiss shakes with each breath, and he does it again. The day has worn him down to the bone and this is all he has left in his arsenal. For the love of god, it had better be enough. 

Eames turns his head, the tiniest of movements, into the next kiss. His lips part, a startled suck of air, and Arthur will take it, he’ll take it. He winds his fingers through Eames’ hair to hold him in place and kisses Eames’ mouth again and again, little childish brushes that have been bowled over time and time again by this sure thing of theirs, except he’s sure about nothing now, only that he needs Eames to get it, respond, do something. His own breathing is embarrassingly noisy, nothing but gasps against Eames’ lips.

Eames dips his chin, catches Arthur’s mouth for a blistering instant, and he utters a word that might be anything. His arms come up around Arthur then, hugging him close like a cinching cord, and that’s when Arthur’s nerves finally flatline. Eames tumbles into the kiss with such headlong abandon that Arthur digs his nails too deep into Eames’ neck before he can think. But it doesn’t matter. Eames draws the kiss out like atonement, licks the next from Arthur and then the next, taking control so completely that Arthur’s head spins. He grabs hold, anywhere he can find purchase, shoulders and elbows and thighs and ass, and he loses track of how long it goes on, only knowing that he’s lightheaded with relief. His back hits the dresser, a painful jar to his spine, and Arthur clenches Eames’ shirt to stay upright. 

Eames pushes between his thighs, presses him off balance anyway, hitches him the last inch until he slides back onto the dresser, his shoulders fetching up against the wall. Something clatters, one of the generic pictures, but Arthur’s more worried about the way Eames sounds: insensate and breathless, and _scared_ in the most profound way. There’s not much space between them, even now. Eames harries Arthur’s fly open and Arthur’s jeans scrape down his hips, a brief, fiery flare. He can feel how hard Eames is, pushing against his belly. His throat floods with saliva. 

He lurches sideways, rasping like he’s been running, scrabbling at his overnight bag until he feels the cool teeth of a zipper. He fumbles the toiletries kit open, finally shoves lube into Eames’ hand. Eames’ fingers are in him before he can blink, his other hand hitching Arthur up under the thigh. Arthur hisses at the burn, clamps his teeth onto Eames’ shoulder and rolls down into it. Eames tastes salty, the musk of not showering in some hours. Adrenaline. Arthur kicks at his jeans, rips Eames’ belt free and shoves his pants down his thighs, and then Eames pulls him up, presses his thumbs hard into Arthur’s hips to re-angle him, and pushes in. Arthur smacks his head back on the wall and squeezes his eyes shut, until Eames turns his face down and kisses him again, hard and fast like the way he’s fucking Arthur. Arthur grunts, bites his lip and feels Eames tongue his mouth open to kiss him instead. It’s been some weeks, and it’s hot and full and overwhelming, and so damned necessary Arthur could cry.

He pushes up into Eames, squeezes on the withdrawal. Lays his fingers across Eames’ cheek, meets his eyes at last and holds them. Eames’ fingers clench tightly enough to bruise his thigh. 

It’s good, it’s great, but it’s not enough. Arthur forces Eames’ chin up again when it drops, when Eames sighs down into his shoulder and tugs him close, buries himself deep. “No, harder,” Arthur grates. “Not like this, I can’t—”

Eames slides out of him, a mutinous look on his face, and lifts Arthur off the dresser top. He stumbles them two steps to the bed and spills Arthur onto it. Arthur rolls over onto his knees, bites his forearm when Eames braces and pushes back in, and there, “Yes, ohgodyes,” right there, _right_ there. Eames plasters himself to Arthur’s back, refuses to withdraw at all on the thrust, just presses in and in, skates a hand up Arthur’s side from thigh to armpit, rucking his shirt, the scratch of the hair on his belly tight to Arthur’s skin. Arthur fumbles back, squeezes Eames’ hip and rocks them into a rhythm that makes Eames groan deep and long in his throat. He grabs Eames’ hand, shoves it down around him, and loses the rest of the thought as the sensation floods over him.

Eames strokes him twice, then hikes back onto his knees, pulling Arthur up with him, his other hand tight around his belly. Arthur sags back, turns his head and finds Eames’ mouth. One of them broke skin, but he’s not sure who: iron trips across his tongue, and what is this penchant for losing everything in hotel beds, what is it about ripping himself wide open under Eames’ fingers that is so damned robust? He’s had this man in so many places, and he never feels as unstrung as when they’re like this, surrounded by strange walls with stranger people on the opposite sides, nothing that they can call theirs, the flavor of blood as physical as it is memorable.

Maybe because when this happens, Arthur’s always on the verge of losing everything else he has. Everything but this. Him.

He comes with a jolt, a cry, and stiffens with it, lifts off of Eames. But Eames follows him, controlled now and fiercely deliberate, urging him through it, forcing him to feel every inch of it, until the sensation whites out his eyes. All he knows is Eames’ mouth locked onto his throat, the edge of teeth, the maddening flick of tongue, the unyielding grip of the arms around him. It slumps him back boneless, reaching sluggishly for Eames’ face, finding it just as Eames thrusts once, twice, and comes with a pained moan that vibrates through Arthur’s throat where Eames’ mouth presses. 

Eames’ fingers trail, steady and searching, dragging sweat up Arthur’s chest. He holds Arthur there against him as they shudder through the aftershocks, and eventually Arthur is so exhausted that he just drops when Eames at last leans forward, lands on his elbows and crawls up toward the pillows. Eames’ hand never leaves him, drifting over his hip, the side of his thigh, around front again to clasp him close and snug their bodies together on the mattress. Arthur curls, wincing at the strain in his lower back, the heat in his pelvis, and Eames curls right around him. 

Instead of getting up and finding the bathroom, he tangles their legs together. Says fuck it to the mess and the impending discomfort, and pulls Eames more tightly to him. It is what it is, and it’s theirs.

**

It’s so quiet. The streetlamp outside went off hours ago, leaving them in the gold hotel lamplight, and Arthur can see everything. He’s been looking since he turned over. For a while, he was able to tangle them back up, draw them together again, this time slow and rending and silent. No kisses, just a gaze Arthur won’t look away from and the taste of Eames’ breath over his lips. Afterward, he was able to believe Eames was asleep, or at least in a stupor.

He’s not anymore.

Eames stares blankly at the ceiling, but there’s a worrisome sag about his eyes, as though the muscles have just given up. “Shouldn’t have left them.”

“Stop.” Arthur tries to find Eames’ hand between their bodies, but the sheets are too rumpled, or Eames is evading him again. “Yes, you damn well should have left. Eames.”

Nothing he can say is going to be convincing. He switches directions, just like he would on a job gradually going south. He can correct this. There are alternatives. “I want you touching me. Right now.”

Eames looks at him immediately, and Arthur can see the realization of what Arthur’s done to his wall (sidestepped it, not even bulled through it, just inched around the edge), but it’s weariness that takes its place. Eames rolls over to face him again, and dutifully reaches.

This all feels very ephemeral, and contact is the key. In spite of the strange room, Eames’ skin smells like home, like a thousand things they own and use and enjoy. Arthur’s veins are still trembling from the speed and ferocity of coming twice. He situates himself inextricably: Eames securely in the grip of both arms, the thud-thud of a heartbeat against Arthur’s cheek. And only when he’s got a good hold—

“All of it. Now.”

For a moment, Eames’ grip stifles. Arthur fists a hand against the small of Eames’ back, waiting to see what he’ll do.

“It was a good job.” Eames’ voice cracks. “Smart people. Capable.”

Capability was never the danger. Ulterior motives were. Arthur just nods.

“You know, I had five forges to do? Fucking fantastic. And Santi’s a force of nature, not even Donald stood in her way once she got going.” 

Eames pauses. Santi _was_ a force of nature.

It hurts.

Eames’ throat bobs. “Good to work with her again.”

Arthur wants to kiss Eames’ throat, rub his lips against the warm, salty skin there. But there’s an overt standoffishness about his husband that warns away from any such contact. Arthur knows that if he trespasses before Eames is ready to unfold himself, he’ll walk a new cold line of transgression that will take much longer to repair. 

“The mark was an absolute mouse,” Eames continues, sounding relieved to be away from the subject of Santi. “One of their accountants. Fixed the taxes, etcetera. All they wanted from him was whether or not he was planning to roll any of their information to Interpol. Just the one inquiry, not much else to go on. We were left to organize it ourselves.”

Which was what Santi liked best while on point. She and Arthur had shared a supreme irritation for other chefs stirring their pots.

“It was one level, but extravagant. Vanek was putting together some sort of mix that we could kick ourselves out of individually without the need for guns, and then come back into later. Long shift under, had a lot of cozying up to do before we could cash in. I mostly did legwork, trailing my subjects. And then one of them died.”

Arthur lifts his head off the pillow. “How?”

“Jumped in front of a commuter train.”

“Suicidal?”

“Not at all,” Eames says dully. He falls briefly silent. “I’d followed him for days. After that, the other forges got jumpy. I began to suspect that our team was funneling for the client, acting as a scope. You know. They’d give us directions to aim, but didn’t actually know where their targets were, and then they’d follow us and when we located the people they wanted…” He gestures listlessly.

“Did you see them? The client’s people.”

Eames shook his head, a slow roll back and forth across the pillow. “Never once. Just a feeling.”

“What about Donald?”

A sliver of a grimace mars Eames’ features. It’s the most emotion Arthur has seen since Eames came, the sound he made breaking against Arthur’s throat. “No fucking point.”

It’s then that Arthur knows Eames is angry on top of it all, that it’s simmering, coals so cool they barely glow, but at some point—tonight, in a week—it’ll leap, burst hot and vicious, and then Eames will be nothing but the wrong kind of emotion. Arthur thinks about that other dim hotel room, Donald’s smug little smiles when he thought he had the upper hand, and finally risks it, slides his arm around Eames’ waist.

Eames’ only reaction is to cover Arthur’s hand with his own.

“After that, my forges started to disappear. Nothing too notable. They just wouldn’t be where they routinely were. There were records, credit card purchases in other cities. On the surface, it looked legitimate. Donald told me to just pick another forge. I told Santi all of it. And I tried to broach it with Vanek, but…”

“He’s… Was hard to read,” Arthur says.

“I wanted to call, run it by you. If anyone could pick out the holes—” Eames presses his hands over his face. “But I couldn’t, and then I couldn’t think, I just, it was all off—”

Arthur grabbed his wrist and squeezed until Eames fell silent. _“Listen_ to me. You go with your gut, sometimes it’s all you have on a job, and you follow it. It felt wrong, you got out. I’m glad you did.”

“Arthur.” The break in Eames’ voice jars Arthur’s pulse. Eames’ eyes are tightly shut, his mouth pursed so thin his lips are bordered in white. 

“What’s—”

“You know I would never leave you on a job, right?” Eames says in a rush, and Arthur can’t speak. Several lengthy seconds go by. 

“What are you even saying?” he grinds out, watching Eames’ hand curl into a fist.

But Eames doesn’t answer.

“God, would you listen to yourself?” Arthur resists, just barely, the urge to climb on top of Eames, to flatten him to the bed and press this idiocy right out of him. It’s not a logical thought and Arthur’s nerves sting with the fact that there’s no real action to take. _“I know that._ You didn’t betray them. You stated your case to the people you felt you could trust, and then you made a decision based on the options that were left. You are not responsible for them or their choices.”

“It’s not even about that,” Eames snaps. Arthur does roll over then, clasps Eames’ face in both hands and makes him look at him.

“I know what it’s about. I _know_ you’d never leave me, or Ariadne, or Yusuf… Fuck—Eames. If for some ungodly reason I were ever being an idiot about some fucked to hell job, I’d want you to tell me so, and then I’d want you to go. Get out. And I know damn well you wouldn’t, even if I threatened to shoot you in the face, do you even—You did not do this. To them, or to me.”

“I swore,” Eames croaks. His eyes dart. “No more paybacks, no more debts, no hitmen coming out of the woodwork. I know you don’t want this part of my life around you, you never did, but I _swear_ to you, I was never trying to aim back into that, I never intended—”

Arthur presses their foreheads together and Eames falls silent at last. Arthur rolls his head, feels the unsteady breath Eames takes. “I know.” 

“Do you? Arthur—”

“I trust you. Above anyone else. If it were a question of what Dom…” No, not good enough. “What Ariadne said and what you said, I’d follow you. If it were a question of what you said and what _I_ said, I’d give it a serious go-round before following my own gut! Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”

Eames shuts his eyes and nods, but Arthur holds him still, squeezes until Eames opens his eyes again. “Look me in the eye and tell me you get it.”

Eames’ lips part but no words come.

“I’m not leaving you.”

Eames swallows. His eyes dart between Arthur’s. “Alright.”

“I trust you implicitly.”

“Alright.”

“You made the right decision.”

“Alright.” It’s weak this time, right on the verge. Arthur lets him off at last, ducks close and tucks them together until he can feel Eames stifled sobs against his throat.

**

He thinks about their home. And the home they had. Two in six years. He’d never cared about the nomadic life before, until he had the opposite and then had it ripped away again. “I think I might be done.”

“With?” As though Eames is still scared of all the ways Arthur might be done with him.

He shrugs them together in answer and presses his mouth to Eames’ chin. Holds it for a long time. “The job, Eames. Just the job.”

He’s feared for Eames before, but this time has kicked him over the edge into a much deeper pool, and battered his nerves in ways he didn’t think they could be battered anymore. He needs to stop giving himself a weakness, a way to be exploited, and he needs to stop providing one to be used against his husband.

Eames just sighs, weary. “I might, too. I don’t ever want to see that look on your face.”

Arthur remembers the fear and huffs a weak laugh. “When I walked into the house?” He can only imagine the expression he’d been wearing when Eames had stood up from his seat at the table.

But Eames shakes his head. “The one when you told me you loved me.”

Here, in this room. Arthur blinks. Eames sounds so sad.

“It was like you were waiting for it, Arthur. And you’d always be waiting for it to happen. To stay with me until someone finally knocks me off the edge.”

“I would.” He pulls back, bewildered. “Eames, you know I would.”

But Eames just shakes his head again and tugs Arthur down into a searching kiss. “Darling, you shouldn’t have to. No one should _know_ that their lover is going to die a horrible death. Or accept it as part of some bargain.”

But it’s who they are. Arthur tries to imagine them without dreamshare, without the PASIV and the Somnacin, without the framework and the forge. He can’t even picture himself, let alone Eames. Waking up, dressing, eating breakfast and walking out the door toward a nine-to-five job, toward anything other than the con, is so ludicrous his mind blanks the image. “I don’t see it that way,” he says, trying to focus on Eames’ last words and not this supremely odd idea of reality. “You and I… We’re together. We work together, we both make this happen.”

“And we have a lot of other skills,” Eames says, his tone careful. 

“It won’t be enough for us.” It can’t be. How could they possibly come off of so much constant adrenaline, go cold turkey into some domestic haven where nothing ever happens that even comes close to what they do? Forget Arthur, _Eames_ would go crazy. 

And then he’d leave.

Arthur shoves it away as soon as it forms. It’s a stupid thought. He’s not foolish enough to think Eames would ever leave him like that. Convince Arthur to come with him, sure, wheedle and pry and nudge until Arthur gave in and fell back into the whirlpool.

“Would it be enough for you?” As always, Eames is reading his thoughts, making it so damn hard for Arthur to shy away from anything, even the things he thinks he might have to. Eames waits a moment, then leans up, turns Arthur onto his back and bends over him, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. Another, not so gentle. Another.

“Darling, there are things I know you want,” Eames whispers against his mouth. It’s fast becoming heated again, too heady for this kind of conversation, and yet Eames still speaks, still chips at Arthur’s heart in tiny, aching blows. “I know you want a family, and that you’re scared of the opportunity to have it—”

“Eames.” His throat feels too hot.

“—because you’re scared of losing.” He stills Arthur before he can pull away, looks him right in the eye. “You’re terrified of losing it all. Like Dom almost did. Like Mal. I have been a damned fool for letting that fear act as any kind of foundation for what we can accomplish, and I’m sorry.”

What Arthur’s terrified of walks a very thin line between what he already has and what he could have. There’s always been one sure way never to lose the latter, and that was by not having it to begin with. But he’s already got Eames, dug in, attached to his vital organs, and he’s already got this potential for what could be. When Eames remained miles away from it, it was safe to fantasize, and to wonder. Now Eames has closed in, too fast and too focused, right into the heart of an idea that Arthur hasn’t let himself seriously entertain.

He knows he’s done for. Once Eames deems an idea favorable, he turns all his considerable skill toward making it a reality, molding Arthur like one of his forges in a dreamscape. And yet, Arthur never feels manipulated. Maybe just bared, all of him finally in the light. Eames knows him—knows them—well enough to work with what Arthur’s most willing to give. His greatest weapon against Arthur has always been the truth.

This is what his retirement will be like, then. Not all at once, because nothing like this ever happens overnight. There are things to do, people to notify and cords to cut. But this is how it starts, not in a devastating injury or a legal knot he can’t find his way out of, like he always expected. It starts with a decision, a shared one.

He doesn’t realize he’s fallen out of the kiss until he registers Eames’ steady breathing and the new space between their bodies. Eames still leans over him, but the heat has slunk back. Arthur licks his lips, sore from Eames’ scruff.

“Can we even be normal?”

“Don’t know. I’ve never really tried.” Eames goes quiet, then settles slowly next to Arthur, facing him across the pillows. “I’ve also never wanted to, until you.”

He can’t entertain the bad side of this, the part where their past comes crashing in and rips their new shared identity brutally in half. They’ll get used to it. They’ll say they won’t, but they’ll forget anyway. They _will_ drop their guard, because that’s the entire point, isn’t it? 

Arthur rubs his face. He’s still thinking like a criminal, one eye forward and one back. He wants to get to the moment two, three years down the line, where this habit has already died off, where the house doesn’t need three locks on each door and the grocer on the corner is and always has been just a grocer.

But they haven’t earned that yet.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he says, after some thought. Maybe it’s better to work in negatives, using the things he doesn’t want to put the rest into perspective. “I don’t want to be the instrument of that, and I don’t want to cripple you when you most need to be invulnerable.”

“Then let’s remove the constant.” Eames bumps his nose to Arthur’s cheek. “This time, let’s take the danger out. See how it goes.”

Well, they’ve already lived in the field together, haven’t they? Arthur nods slowly. What’s the harm in living out of it? “I don’t think I’ll be any good at this.”

Eames could quip, could make a joke. Instead he touches his nose to Arthur’s cheek again, runs it gently down to the curve of his jaw. “I think you’ll be better than me.” 

~

 

_Home is any four walls that enclose the right person. ~Helen Rowland_

 

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> _“Saw something I knew you’d like. I’m afraid I made an impulse buy.”_
> 
> _“What is it?”_
> 
> _“Well, they’re red, white, and square, darling. And there’s a thickly woven tie, right up the front.”_  
>   
> 
> For more information on this, [go here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/594976/chapters/2372416). ^_~


End file.
